Turkish oil wrestling - All About Turkey

Turkish oil wrestling - All About Turkey

Why Do They Apply the Oil?

For many years the practitioners of the sport of wrestling have prepared in religious settlements. The first wrestling sketches were found in Egypt in Beni Hasan temple which was built five thousand years ago. In Central Asia, religious men called "shamans," and "dai" have been involved with wrestling. In the Ottoman Empire wrestlers were brought up in religious environments called "tekke" for seven hundred years. Just like five thousand years ago, Japanese Sumo Wrestling and Turkish Kirkpinar carries over the religious motifs of the past. Man is not simply made of matter, the other half of the human equation is our spirit and spiritual being. Wrestling without the spiritual relationship has been accepted to be harmful for the improvement of the human character. The wrestlers oiling each-other is a signification of the importance of "balance" in such competitions.

According to English thinker Bertrand Russel, the Roman Empire collapsed due to the infected mosquitoes that spread Malaria. In those times, living at sea level, to 400m above sea level was close to impossible. Even mosquito nets, burning animal feces, standing in smoke during sundown were not sufficient for complete protection from mosquitoes. The oil extracted from a vegetable particular to the Mediterranean region: "the olive," was used in cooking and for protection from mosquitoes. When humans learned to mix a specific ingredient "kafur" with olive oil for full protection from mosquitoes, the Roman Empire was long gone. The people of Anatolia who spent day by day applying olive oil on to their bodies, continued to wrestle with their bodies oiled, and a new style of wrestling surfaced from this condition: "oil wrestling."